Umbrella Sharing and Threat Modeling

Shared umbrellas2 framed

A month or so ago, I wrote “Bicycling and Threat Modeling,” about new approaches to bike sharing in China. Now I want to share with you “Umbrella-sharing startup loses nearly all of its 300,000 umbrellas in a matter of weeks.”

The Shenzhen-based company was launched earlier this year with a 10 million yuan investment. The concept was similar to those that bike-sharing startups have used to (mostly) great success. Customers use an app on their smartphone to pay a 19 yuan deposit fee for an umbrella, which costs just 50 jiao for every half hour of use.

According to the South China Morning Post, company CEO Zhao Shuping said that the idea came to him after watching bike-sharing schemes take off across China, making him realize that “everything on the street can now be shared.”

I don’t know anything about the Shanghaiist, but it’s quoting a story in the South China Morning Post, which closes:

Last month, a bicycle loan company had to close after 90 per cent of its bikes were stolen.

Secure updates: A threat model

Software updates

Post-Petya there have been a number of alarming articles on insecure update practices. The essence of these stories is that tax software, mandated by the government of Ukraine, was used to distribute the first Petya, and that this can happen elsewhere. Some of these stories are a little alarmist, with claims that unnamed “other” software has also been used in this way. Sometimes the attack is easy because updates are unsigned, other times its because they’re also sent over a channel with no security.

The right answer to these stories is to fix the damned update software before people get more scared of updating. That fear will survive long after the threat is addressed. So let me tell you, [as a software publisher] how to do secure upadtes, in a nutshell.

The goals of an update system are to:

  1. Know what updates are available
  2. Install authentic updates that haven’t been tampered with
  3. Strongly tie updates to the organization whose software is being updated. (Done right, this can also enable whitelisting software.)

Let me elaborate on those requirements. First, know what updates are available — the threat here is that an attacker stores your message “Version 3.1 is the latest revision, get it here” and sends it to a target after you’ve shipped version 3.2. Second, the attacker may try to replace your update package with a new one, possibly using your keys to sign it. If you’re using TLS for channel security, your TLS keys are only as secure as your web server, which is to say, not very. You want to have a signing key that you protect.

So that’s a basic threat model, which leads to a system like this:

  1. Update messages are signed, dated, and sequenced. The code which parses them carefully verifies the signatures on both messages, checks that the date is later than the previous message and the sequence number is higher. If and only if all are true does it…
  2. Get the software package. I like doing this over torrents. Not only does that save you money and improve availability, but it protects you against the “Oh hello there Mr. Snowden” attack. Of course, sometimes a belief that torrents have the “evil bit” set leads to blockages, and so you need a fallback. [Note this originally called the belief “foolish,” but Francois politely pointed out that that was me being foolish.]
  3. Once you have the software package, you need to check that it’s signed with the same key as before.
    Better to sign the update and the update message with a key you keep offline on a machine that has no internet connectivity.

  4. Since all of the verification can be done by software, and the signing can be done with a checklist, PGP/GPG are a fine choice. It’s standard, which means people can run additional checks outside your software, it’s been analyzed heavily by cryptographers.

What’s above follows the four-question framework for threat modeling: what are we working on? (Delivering updates securely); what can go wrong? (spoofing, tampering, denial of service); what are we going to do about it? (signatures and torrents). The remaining question is “did we do a good job?” Please help us assess that! (I wrote this quickly on a Sunday morning. Are there attacks that this design misses? Defenses that should be in place?)

Worthwhile Books: Q2 2017

I’m always looking for interesting books to read. These are the books that I enjoyed enough to recommend in Q2.

Cyber

Nonfiction, not security

  • Narrative and Numbers, Aswath Damodaran. Presents a compelling approach for using narrative and numbers to discuss business valuation, but the lessons can be extended and used in many places. Also worthwhile is his focus on improving stories by testing them and seeking out contrary views.
  • The End of Average, by Todd Rose. Rose uses narrative to make the case that the mean is not the distribution, and that focusing in on averages leads to all sorts of problems.
  • A Sense of Style, Steven Pinker. I learned a number of things about how to write clearly and how the brain processes words. Some of those things will be in the next edition of Threat Modeling.
  • Starman, Jamie Doran. A biography of Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space.
  • Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo, Nicholas de Monchaux. A really fascinating socio-technical history of the Apollo Spacesuit and the interactions between NASA and their systems approaches and the International Latex Company, who at the time, mainly made women’s undergarments under the Playtex Brand. NASA was focused on manufacturing from plans, ILC fashioned from patterns. The engineered suits didn’t function as clothing. ILC once sent NASA a silent filmstrip of an space-suited employee playing football as part of their argument for their approach. (As an aside, I re-wrote the first sentence here to put the long dependent clause at the end, because of advice in Pinker, and the sentence is better for it.)

Fiction

  • Underground Airlines by Ben Winters. What if Lincoln had been shot, the civil war averted, and slavery was still legal in a “hard four” southern states? Not a breezy read, but fascinating alternate history.
  • Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer. The second book in a quartet chronicling in the 23rd century. An interestingly non-standard future with deep layers of complexity. Challenging reading because of the language, the nicknames and Palmer’s fascinating lens on gender, but easier than her first book, Too Like the Lightning. Searching this blog, I am surprised that I never linked to her excellent blog, Ex Urbe. Also, there’s a Crooked Timber seminar on the series.
  • Yesterday’s Kin, Nancy Kress. Nancy Kress, need I say more? Apparently, I do, there’s a trilogy coming out, and the first book, Tomorrow’s Kin, is out shortly.

Threat Modeling Encrypted Databases

Adrian Colyer has an interesting summary of a recent paper, “Why your encrypted database is not secure” in his excellent “morning paper” blog.

If we can’t offer protection against active attackers, nor against persistent passive attackers who are able to simply observe enough queries and their responses, the fallback is to focus on weaker guarantees around snapshot attackers, who can only obtain a single static observation of the compromised system (e.g., an attacker that does a one-off exfiltration). Today’s paper pokes holes in the security guarantees offered in the face of snapshots attacks too.

…
Many recent encrypted databases make strong claims of “provable security” against snapshot attacks. The theoretical models used to support these claims are abstractions. They are not based on analyzing the actual information revealed by a compromised database system and how it can be used to infer the plaintext data.

I take away two things: first, there’s a coalescence towards a standard academic model for database security, and it turns out to be a grounded model. (In contrast to models like the random oracle in crypto.) Second, all models are wrong, and it turns out that the model of a snapshot attacker seems…not all that useful.

Voter Records, SSN and Commercial Authentication

Verifiedbyvisa

A Wednesday letter from the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity gives secretaries of state about two weeks to provide about a dozen points of voter data. That also would include dates of birth, the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers… (NYTimes story) Of this writing, 44 states have refused.

I want to consider only the information security aspects of the letter, which also states that “Please be aware that any documents that are submitted to the full Commission will also be made available to the public.”

Publishing a list of SSNs is prohibited by 42 USC 405(c)(2)(C)(Viii), but that only applies to “SSNs or related record[s].” Related record means “any record, list, or compilation that indicates, directly or indirectly, the identity of any individual with respect to whom a social security account number or a request for a social security account number is maintained pursuant to this clause.” So its unclear to me if that law prohibits publishing the last 4 digits of the SSN in this way.

So, if a list of names, addresses, datas of birth and last four digits of the SSN of every voter are made available, what does that to to they myth that those selfsame four digits can be used as an authenticator?

I’d like to thank the administration for generating so much winning in authentication, and wish the very best of luck to everyone who now needs to scramble to find an alternate authentication technique.

Image credit: Jeff Hunsaker, “Verified by Visa: Everything We Tell Folks to Avoid.”

The Unanimous Declaration of The 13 United States

declaration-of-independence.jpg

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts

John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut

Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York

William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey

Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania

Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland

Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina

William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia

Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Image: Washington’s copy of the Declaration of Independence, from the Library of Congress.

Goldsworthy’s Nature

Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy creates effects by arranging nature. In this case, it’s a set of leaves around the base of a tree. There’s an online archive of his early work, and plenty of other sites, such as Melt, but it seems that the artist, wisely, does not bother with a website.

DNA Replicates, Filmed at 11.

Scientists have long assumed that the DNA polymerases on the leading and lagging strands somehow coordinate with each other throughout the replication process, so that one does not get ahead of the other during the unravelling process and cause mutations.

But this new footage reveals that there’s no coordination at play here at all – somehow, each strand acts independently of the other, and still results in a perfect match each time.
(DNA Replication Has Been Filmed For The First Time, And It’s Not What We Expected,” Science Alert

Paper: Independent and Stochastic Action of DNA Polymerases in the Replisome.

Links of Interest

  • It’s a good thing that the Supreme Court’s conservative wing is opposed to judges making law, because if they added a new term like “bona fide relationship” to immigration law, it would be hugely confusing. A bona fide crisis for opponents of “judicial activism.”
  • If you have an AT&T email account, Verizon is going to break your Flickr account.
  • Google Will No Longer Scan Gmail for Ad Targeting Does that mean that the incremental ad revenue from learning more about people is not worth the effort to discuss privacy?